


with the ocean in our arms

by midnightfable



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Political Sansa Stark, Post-War for the Dawn, Tenderness, White Harbor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22359436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightfable/pseuds/midnightfable
Summary: On a visit to White Harbor, Theon finds a moment to take Sansa down to the sea.
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45





	with the ocean in our arms

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first piece of creative writing I've published in a very long time, and I honestly couldn't have done it without the encouragement, inspiration, and feedback from countless members the theonsa fan community over the past months. All my thanks <3

Sansa watches the pale light of dawn bleed through gloom, casting a soft glow on the sprawling city below her. Across town the streets lay beneath a veil of mist and shadow, illuminated only by a smattering of lamps burning low in the early hours of daylight. Winterfell was no stranger to misty mornings, but the sea of fog that swamps White Harbor each day is a sight of its own to behold.

Once, she would have been swept up in all the enchantments this city had to offer, but each passing day she only finds herself missing Winterfell: the familiarity of its people, the warmth of the hot springs pulsing through the castle walls, the wind whispering through the godswood, the feeling of home so long denied that it was almost forgotten; and most of all, her brother Bran, who beneath the weight of the world was slowly learning to smile again.

She knows Theon thinks of home, too: not the one they had built in Winterfell, but the one from his childhood. She recalls the way his eyes stayed fixed across the water the day they rode into the city, heedless to all other sights and sounds that surrounded them; how during the feast that same night, she found him gazing silently beyond the open balcony, drawn to the glint of moonlight upon the bay. Though he seldom speaks of his childhood on Pyke, she knows the sea holds a special place in his heart, and remembers with clarity the first time he described the ocean to her, recalling the beauty of the rugged shore and the feeling of freedom on the open sea, his voice tinged with wistfulness and longing.

Sansa had only ever glimpsed the sea from King’s Landing. Enthralled by the towering heights of the Red Keep, the spectacle of the tournament and the decadence of the court, the ocean beyond held little enchantment for her. Everything changed the day her father lost his head on the steps of Baelor, cut down before her very eyes. In the days thereafter she looked to the sea for rescue, awaiting the day northern ships might sail down from White Harbor and whisk her away. They never came.

Now a different kind of uncertainty lay before her. The North had bled from every corner, and even White Harbor had not been untouched by calamity. Although the dead had not breached the walls of the city, the war had taken its toll in other ways. Since the outbreak of conflict, the city had opened its arms to scores of smallfolk, fleeing the fury of men and nature alike. Their homes lost to war or winter, many of them remained even now. Victory alone could not bring back life as it once was; Sansa knew that all too well.

Their faces linger in her memory long after the doors of the crowded city kitchen closed behind her, and perhaps nothing before has made her feel the limits of her own power. She can bring smiles to those who eagerly call her name, offering alms and affirmations, but is left grieved she cannot do more for them. She bears herself with confidence and pride before high lords and smallfolk alike, but cannot quell the doubt that wells within her during her darkest nights. She wonders if her father felt so uncertain when he became Lord of Winterfell, or whether Robb ever found himself feeling so overwhelmed, so hesitant, so apprehensive.

“Sansa?” The sound of Theon’s voice pulls her from her darkening thoughts, and when she turns from the balcony her doubts momentarily retreat beneath the warmth of his gaze. As though he can sense the worries that weigh on her heart, he pulls her close, allowing his forehead to rest against her own. She falls into his steady embrace and closes her eyes, leaning into the comforting familiarity of his touch that anchors her amidst the uncertainty of the world outside, and it reminds her that she too is allowed a moment of solace, of relief.

“You asked me about the sea once,” he says when he finally pulls back to meet her gaze, his fingers intertwining with hers as they settle against his chest. “Let me show you.”

His eyes are full of promise, and that promise in his eyes alone is enough to make a day’s worth of worries begin to fall away, piece by piece.

* * *

As a boy the sea had offered him solace, an escape from the ceaseless hostilities that permeated the walls of Pyke and seeped beneath his skin like a poison. He would retreat to the water’s edge to wash away wounds wrought by words and fists alike, to drown out the echoes of his father’s cruelty, Rodrik’s rages and Maron’s mockery. In the embrace of the waves he found the promise of freedom, and he knew they would never deny him. 

He had been forced to leave that comfort behind when he was taken to Winterfell, torn from the only home he ever knew. Of what little joys he had known on Pyke, it became another thing that had been taken from him, no less than his mother’s warm embrace. Once he had sworn to never go far from the sea again, to turn his back on Winterfell for good, but it was a vow he had broken many times over. In pursuit of hollow glories, for favor so desperately sought. As a broken man in a broken castle, a phantom of the person he used to be. Finally, for her.

Nevertheless, the sea returns to him in his dreams, the crash of the waves an echo in his heart. The steady pulse of the tide, the sand beneath his feet, the boundless sea beneath the sky’s infinite dome – all of it is a precious memory, and to finally be able to share that with her means the world to him.

But more than anything now, he wants to make her smile.

They set out at midmorning, heading south on a road following the bend of the coastline until White Harbor is but a faded shadow behind them. They ride in contented silence, surrounded by the soothing whisper of wind and wave alone. The air is mild, yet cool and crisp, and when he takes a deep breath, he finds the heady scent of salt in the air still comfortingly familiar.

They rein up atop a bluff rising above the churning sea, an outcrop crowned with beachgrass swaying softly in the breeze. He hears the soft catch of her breath as she absorbs the vastness before her; even in the grey light of morning he sees she is taken by the rugged beauty of the coastline, the horizon stretching out as far as the eyes can see.

They descend further down the bank before dismounting below the bluff. Theon slips off his boots, eager to feel the shore beneath his feet, laying them astride his folded cloak. Sansa hesitates to follow his lead, doubtlessly discomfited by the very thought of dirt caking her legs. Grit and grime had always been her sister’s forté, after all, and he knows no amount of travelling has inured her to the feeling of grubbiness after just a few hours on the road. Yet the assuring smile he offers is all the encouragement she needs, and she follows his lead, allowing her bare feet to hit the sand.

His fingers entwine with hers, and together they set forth to meet the tide.

When the waters’ chill reaches their feet a squeal of laughter peals from her lips, clear and bright, but it’s the smile she shoots him that steals his breath away. The white sea foam coils around their ankles with each surge of the tide, while each retreat tugs at the sand beneath their feet, beckoning them closer to the waters in the same way he feels undeniably drawn to her.

He watches as she closes her eyes and lets it all wash over her: the feather-light touch of sea spray upon her face, the taste of the ocean on the wind, the ceaseless hush of the waves around them. The apprehension and worry that had shadowed her face that morning seems to wither away and disappear before his eyes, and Theon’s heart can only swell at the sight.

The sea meant freedom to the people of the Iron Islands. It wasn’t a feeling that Theon expected an outsider to understand; Winterfell was leagues from the sea, after all. Yet as she lifts her head to the sweet sea wind with the trace of a smile upon her lips, lost in the murmur of the waves, Theon knows she can feel it, too.


End file.
